EU must stop brain-drain to stay innovative

THE European Commission is looking ahead to the seventh research Framework Programme (7FP), but there is much to be done with the current programme (6FP) if the EU is to realize its Lisbon Agenda pledge made four years ago by European leaders to make the EU the world’s most dynamic and competitive economy by 2010: Europe still lags behind the US in many key performance indicators.

Leading researchers across Europe have lost patience with existing over-bureaucratic and under-funded EU research programmes. Not so long ago some 160,000 French researchers – though it could have been any EU country – protested against cuts in government funds for research and development (R&D) and the dim employment prospects facing hundreds of talented graduates.

Europe currently spends 40% less on R&D than the US and is now experiencing a brain-drain that threatens to turn EU member states’ research capacity into a thing of the past: 400,000 European science and technology graduates now live and work in the US. Every year thousands more join them and only 13% of those expat scientists intend to return home, according to a European Commission survey.

The US now has 78% more hi-tech patents per capita than the EU. All the evidence shows that, in today’s economy, no country can be successful without innovation; and it is the IT, biotech and the pharmaceutical sectors that are the primary drivers of innovation.

This is not just a question of national pride, but of ensuring a robust economic future through investment in growth, innovation and jobs. Without a dynamic and supportive R&D environment, key growth sectors cannot thrive, because innovation is stifled and so they eventually wither or go elsewhere.

And without those industries, the EU will lose billions of euro and hundreds of thousands of jobs directly.

Faced with a growing array of long and bureaucratic approval procedures, pharmaceutical companies are in some cases deciding against launching new treatments in Europe. Others are moving their R&D out of Europe. Should such trends continue unabated, Europeans will find themselves deprived of access to innovative treatments available to people in other parts of the world.

This does not mean Europeans have totally lost their flair for innovation and action. At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, consensus views were expressed on the need for broad reforms to ensure that Europe pays a more equitable share of the cost of medicines to support future R&D, to offer tax incentives to encourage innovation, and to increase funding for university-business links.

Particularly noteworthy was the effort by Enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen to address imbalances in Europe’s health-care systems through the G10 high-level group on innovation and provision of medicines.

It is not yet too late for Europe to regain a leading role in health care and all fields of R&D.

Letizia Moratti – Italian minister for education, university, scientific and technological research – during the recent Italian EU presidency proposed a multilateral agreement among member states to fund jointly the best-rated research projects across Europe, avoiding long bureaucratic and administrative procedures in individual states.

Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin suggested the creation of new trans-European research infrastructures to maximize the potential of the existing scientific networks in order to achieve “hi-tech excellence platforms”.

These would embed Europe’s commitment to innovation and provide a much needed impetus for economic growth.

These initiatives reflect a growing recognition that Europe can only save its rich R&D heritage and compete with the US and Japan, by providing incentives to stay to Europe’s most precious asset – the brain-power of our citizens.

Professor Giuseppe Nisticò is a former MEP for Forza Italia. A graduate in medicine, he is a professor of pharmacology and a widely published author in scientific journals.